Studio wanted

peterattheboro

peterattheboro

peterattheboro

Soldato
Joined
24 Sep 2005
Posts
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Location
Middlesbrough
So looking at the recent trend here of people buying studio gear, I now want in aswell :)

Now i'm a complete noob to lighting so I don't know what I want exactly when it comes to brands and model numbers.

So I have a budget of £500. What would be the best kit to go for?

(Obviously second hand)

Cheers :)
 
Your best bet is to stick some wanted ad's out on forums etc and see what you get offered :)

Mine costed:

2 x 250W Prolinca Lights, with stands, light meter and cables - £190
2 x Prolinca Softboxes, one large one medium - £80
Backdrop support system - £60
2 x backdrops (one black one white) £90 in total

so £420 in total. Well worth it though :) - No substitute for proper lighting :)
 
Phate said:
Your best bet is to stick some wanted ad's out on forums etc and see what you get offered :)

Mine costed:

2 x 250W Prolinca Lights, with stands, light meter and cables - £190
2 x Prolinca Softboxes, one large one medium - £80
Backdrop support system - £60
2 x backdrops (one black one white) £90 in total

so £420 in total. Well worth it though :) - No substitute for proper lighting :)
Click to expand...

An 'out of curiousity' question; does this provide you with a setup where the lighting is continuously on? When shooting portraits, is it not necessary to have external flashes that trigger as well or is that not necessary?

So for £420 thats a complete introductory setup? Thats not bad at all.

Thanks :)
 
martinturner said:
An 'out of curiousity' question; does this provide you with a setup where the lighting is continuously on? When shooting portraits, is it not necessary to have external flashes that trigger as well or is that not necessary?

So for £420 thats a complete introductory setup? Thats not bad at all.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Its a continuous bulb which when triggered by the camera has a seperate light which is the flash :)

6759822.JPG



See? :)
 
That's very cool!

Can I ask a really noob lighting question ... if you are working with a continuous light, why do you need additional seperate flashes? Why not just use continuous light. Example scenarios are welcomed. I am really interested.

Second question; are those lights compatible with a specific camera? I am presuming you would need a camera which can control external flashes? From a low end of the Nikon range, a D90?

:)
 
martinturner said:
That's very cool!

Can I ask a really noob lighting question ... if you are working with a continuous light, why do you need additional seperate flashes? Why not just use continuous light. Example scenarios are welcomed. I am really interested. :)
Click to expand...

Ask away.

Simple reason being you can have the continuous bulb but it won't light the subject anything like the strobe from the flash. Take a photo with just the lights in your room then use a flash using the same settings. Big difference.


I can probably do a video later if you like :)
 
The continuous light is the modelling light... it gives you an idea of what the lighting setup will achieve when the flash fires (ie, you can see the areas of shadow and highlight); the modelling light does not contribute to the exposure.

You can get always-on ("hot") lighting, but that tends to be used more for video than photo work.

The advantage of flash is that the short duration will freeze action; if you're using hot lights, you can only do that with a fast shutter speed... and a flash pulse is generally much faster than the fastest shutter speed on most cameras.
 
Phate said:
Ask away.

Simple reason being you can have the continuous bulb but it won't light the subject anything like the strobe from the flash. Take a photo with just the lights in your room then use a flash using the same settings. Big difference.


I can probably do a video later if you like :)
Click to expand...

Thank you. Actually, had I spent a little more time thinking about it .... lol! So I am presuming your camera controls these strobes; are they specific to camera model.

Have never even used on-board flash before (well I have, but don't exactly choose to), so these setups a whole new world to me.

Great to see with images though. I always thought the strobes were on seperate stands to the continuous lighting.

It makes it even more of a good price given it includes off camera strobes as well as continous lighting. How does this compare with one of those amateur kits; I am guessing its always better to buy seperately?

:)
 
martinturner said:
Thank you. Actually, had I spent a little more time thinking about it .... lol! So I am presuming your camera controls these strobes; are they specific to camera model.
Click to expand...

Studio lights are pretty generic, almost every camera has the port for a sync cable which connects to the back of one of the lights, this will be the master light, and will in turn, wirelessly set off the others

It makes it even more of a good price given it includes off camera strobes as well as continous lighting. How does this compare with one of those amateur kits; I am guessing its always better to buy seperately?

:)
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Define amateur kits? :) I've used off camera lighting for a little while now mainly using just flashguns and have always produced good results.

Remember, it's not the equipment you have, its the person using it :)
 
Phate said:
Define amateur kits? :) I've used off camera lighting for a little while now mainly using just flashguns and have always produced good results.

Remember, it's not the equipment you have, its the person using it :)
Click to expand...

Amateur kits. I meant an out-of-box kit that includes everything (strobes, backdrop, softboxes etc.). A friend of mine is into portrait photography and he was looking at them at a show we went to. I wondered whether it is better buying all the bits seperately. I guess, unless I specify exactly what you got you cannot really compare. I was just curious as I often see complete studio setups advertised in photo magazines.

"Remember, it's not the equipment you have, its the person using it" ... how very true, I personally think that too many of us are more wrapped up in the kit we use/buy we forget to go out and use it.

Thanks for your reply; nice to learn something new. :)
 
Theres a studio in my uni, they uses a taped up speedlight (not nikon, but on a d40) to control the wireless lights.

When it came to my go i simply put my camera (D70) into commander mode and used my sb600 aimed upwards. When i pressed the shutter it triggered all the other flashes.

D90 should work well.
 
martinturner said:
Amateur kits. I meant an out-of-box kit that includes everything (strobes, backdrop, softboxes etc.). A friend of mine is into portrait photography and he was looking at them at a show we went to. I wondered whether it is better buying all the bits seperately. I guess, unless I specify exactly what you got you cannot really compare. I was just curious as I often see complete studio setups advertised in photo magazines.

"Remember, it's not the equipment you have, its the person using it" ... how very true, I personally think that too many of us are more wrapped up in the kit we use/buy we forget to go out and use it.

Thanks for your reply; nice to learn something new. :)
Click to expand...

Got a link to the amateur kits? I'm sure they produce results, be interested to see what's included.

I just bought the bits seperately because I knew what I needed to get, I still need to sort out some wireless triggers for the lights so I can use my speedlite with the flashes and use it as a hairlight for example.

But this is my setup when it's all out of it's bags

loveit.jpg
 
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